Posted by MHk on November 19, 2001 at 15:31:45:
In Reply to: take the chip off your shoulder posted by Chris on November 19, 2001 at 15:02:10:
Chris,
After your repeated acts, the chip doesn't fall off so easily.. But much more to the direct point I was making, we are dealing with several issues on a parralel track..
The fact is, the judicial history of these types of accidents rely on the fact that the plantiff exercised reasonable care and just prudence. The overwhelming basis for that legal analysis was because that the courts relied upon the quality of training and therefore it was reasonable for teh skipper or DM to do as well. However, once you bifrucate the process and suggest/require that skippers and DM's make on site judgement calls the plantiffs loose the very blanket of protection that has held them harmless in the first place.. In short, to the extent that the courts no longer rely on the quality of training as an indemnification, we loose our protection.. Some feel that this touchy feely, patch wearing, the whole family should feel good, watered down training is good for the industry because it increases market share.. I feel 100% the direct opposite because by lowering the bar, you are increasing the risk for all of us that love this sport, that breathe this sport, and that would rather have fewer divers, so long as the quality of the divers increased..
You see, I'm not in the business of selling gear, I'm not in the business of selling vacation packages, I'm not in the business of selling classes, etc. etc.. So I don't give a sh*t about market share, my concern is the amount of fatalities that we have, my concern is receiveing e-mails from grieving parents to go retrieve the body, my concern is that unless the BS stops that the government will one day decide that they are taking over and we'll have countless BS rules and regulations that will take all the fun out of diving and will be tantamount to filling a tax return and we'll have moronic government rules that make no f*cking sense...
Most don't care to look at the big picture and prefer to spend their day protecting the small amount of turf that they have carved out for themselves.. I have no turf to protect, except that I want to continue the freedom of getting away from the phone, faxes and e-mails of my bust professional life and I want to enjoy going underwater and the last thing I want on the weekends is to have some beauracrat telling me how I should dive, based upon some BS government commisioned study...
Later